Before he was named Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was best known for his extremist views about vaccines. He has said repeatedly that vaccines are unsafe, that the vaccines cause the disease they are supposed to prevent; and that vaccines cause autism.

His views are so extreme that he was asked at his confirmation hearings by Republican Senator Bill Cassidy, who is a doctor, whether he would change the vaccine policies of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Kennedy insisted that he would not.

Today, it became clear that he is trashing the vaccine policies that he said under oath he would not change.

RFK Jr..’s fired every member of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) and replaced them with his allies.

Today, that hand-picked panel voted to stop recommending that all newborns receive a vaccine against Hepatitis B.

Senator Cassidy posted this reaction on Twitter:

As a liver doctor who has treated patients with hepatitis B for decades, this change to the vaccine schedule is a mistake. The hepatitis B vaccine is safe and effective. The birth dose is a recommendation, NOT a mandate.

Before the birth dose was recommended, 20,000 newborns a year were infected with hepatitis B. Now, it’s fewer than 20. Ending the recommendation for newborns makes it more likely the number of cases will begin to increase again. This makes America sicker.

Acting CDC Director O’Neill should not sign these new recommendations and instead retain the current, evidence-based approach.

Senator Kennedy’s outrage was echoed by numerous medical leaders and organizations. Children will die because of this decision.

The New York Times reported on the response to the ACIP decision by experts:

For many public health experts, the vote also marked the end of trust in the C.D.C. and its vaccine advisers.

“Today is a defining moment for our country,” Michael Osterholm, a public health expert at the University of Minnesota, said. “We can no longer trust federal health authorities when it comes to vaccines.”

In a statement, Dr. Richard Besser, president and chief executive of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and a former acting director of the agency, said “policymakers, physicians, and families must turn to reputable medical and public health groups for guidance, and health insurers should do the same for informing what vaccines they will cover.” 

The votes on hepatitis B were originally scheduled for the September meeting but deferred twice because some members said there was insufficient data to make a decision. The committee attempted the vote again on Thursday, but postponed it after some panelists questioned whether a change was warranted.

Some panelists noted that the practice had helped to nearly eliminate cases among newborns in the United States, and that there was no evidence of harm from the shots at any age.

“We know it’s safe, and we know it’s very effective,” Dr. Cody Meissner, a professor of pediatrics at Dartmouth Geisel School of Medicine, said on Friday, and he warned that if the vote passed, “we will see more children and adolescents and adults infected with hepatitis B….”

RFK Jr. has used his power over the vast agency to fire or force out many well-respected scientists, who were replaced by people who share Kennedy’s extremist hatred of vaccines.

Vinay Prasad, director of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER) and the chief medical and scientific officer at the US Food and Drug Administration, is strongly anti-vaxx, despite his sterling credentials. He recently stated that “at least” 10 children had died after taking the COVID vaccine shot, but he provided no evidence showing the causes of their deaths or how they were related to the vaccine.

Dr. Prasad said that the number of deaths might be more than 10.

Paul Offit, an infectious diseases physician at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, said of the memo: “When you make that kind of sensational claim, I think it’s incumbent upon you to provide evidence that supports that claim. He didn’t supply any evidence.”

Dr. Offit was a member of the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC) at CDC but was removed earlier this year.

Nearly 24 million children between 6 months to age 17 received at least one shot of COVID vaccine, according to the CDC.